Paula Graves - Smoky Mountain Setup

“Because I thought you could.” He looked away from her, his gaze angling toward the window beside the fireplace. After a second she followed his gaze and saw that the snowfall was starting to reach blizzard proportion, whiting out everything around the cabin.

“The power probably won’t hold out much longer,” she warned him, moving toward the hall. “If you want something hot for dinner, we should heat it up while we still have electricity.”

He followed her down the short hallway to the kitchen at the back of the cabin. “I don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s soup from a can. I’ll heat it in the microwave. You’re not putting me out.” She pulled a large can of beef stew from the pantry and showed it to him. “How’s this?”

“It’s fine. Thank you. Can I help with anything?”

“Again, soup from a can, heated in the microwave.” She shot him a look of amusement. “Sit down, Landry. You look as if you rode a bicycle here all the way from Bitterwood.”

“Barrowville,” he corrected her with a wry grimace. “Which was a breeze compared to hoofing it here on foot from North Carolina.”

Olivia set the can on the counter and turned to look at him. “North Carolina?”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?” As he met her gaze, waning daylight cast his face in light and shadows, emphasizing how much older he looked now than the last time she’d seen him. The past two years had been hard on him. Aged him, left fine lines around his eyes and mouth.

“Okay,” she said quietly and returned to the task of preparing soup for their dinner.

He ate as if he hadn’t eaten in days, though, as she’d noticed before, he didn’t appear thin enough to have skipped too many meals over the months he’d been missing. Without being asked, she opened another can of soup and heated it up for him.

“Thank you,” he told her after he’d finished the second can of soup. “I haven’t had anything but protein bars and water for the past two days.”

She wanted to ask him what had happened to him, but there was a warning light in his eyes when she leaned toward him, as if he’d read her mind.

She sat back and finished her own soup slowly as he took his bowl and spoon to the sink and washed them. When he was done, he walked past the table and went to stand by the kitchen window to watch it snow.

“How long is the snow supposed to last?” he asked.

“It should snow all night. We should get about six or seven inches, and the temperature isn’t going to get above freezing for a couple of days after that. There’s a slight chance for more snow day after tomorrow, but the weather guys aren’t as sure about that.” So he hadn’t been near a television or radio in the past few days, either, she noted silently.

Just where the hell had he been all this time?

* * *

OLIVIA’S CABIN WAS large and tastefully rustic, but Landry had a feeling the place had come fully furnished. Outside of her bedroom, there was little in the cabin that reminded him of her apartment back in Richmond, a small loft apartment that she’d decorated in cool colors and clean lines. Even her beloved quilts had been stitched together in straight patterns, using fabrics in blues, greens and whites. Uncluttered and organized—that had been the Olivia Sharp he’d known and loved.

But he could tell she’d changed, just as he had. She’d left the FBI first, left him and his anger behind. He’d been both furious and hurt at first, but after what he’d gone through over the past few months, hanging on to resentment seemed pointless.

“I don’t have a spare bed.”

He looked up to find her standing in the living room doorway, holding another thick quilt like the one he’d seen on her bed. “You have a sofa. That’ll do.”

She handed him the quilt. It was another of her creations; he could tell by the geometric precision of the pattern.

“Still quilting?” he asked as she started to leave the room.

She stopped and turned to face him. “When I have time. Which isn’t often these days.”

He set the quilt on the sofa next to him and waved toward one of the armchairs across from where he sat. “You like working at The Gates?”

She sat and folded her hands in her lap. “I do.”

“Your boss seems very interested in your welfare.”

The look she sent slicing his way was sharp enough to cut.

“Sorry. Too soon?”

“Quinn takes an interest in all of his employees,” she said flatly.

“He’s trying to take down the Blue Ridge Infantry.”

She didn’t answer, her eyes narrowing.

“I’m not a traitor, Olivia.”

“You never told me how you got mixed up with the BRI.” She crossed her long legs and sat back, pinning him with a challenging stare. “I know you tried to help McKenna Rigsby when she was targeted by the Blue Ridge Infantry. You talked to one of our agents, tried to warn him about Darryl Boyle’s involvement with the BRI. But one question never really got answered, once you disappeared—”

“How did I know about Boyle?”

“Exactly.”

He tried to relax, as well, even though he suspected that some of Olivia’s placid composure was an act. He knew his unexpected arrival on her doorstep that afternoon had been a shock to her system, but as usual, she was trying not to let it show.

“I suspected, when Rigsby supposedly went rogue, that something very bad had driven her there. She struck me as a good agent. She sure as hell hadn’t joined the Blue Ridge Infantry—she hated them with a passion, hated everything they were doing and how they were twisting things like honor and patriotism for their own purposes.” He couldn’t hold back a smile remembering Rigsby’s tirades. “She vented to me. A lot. She was undercover, trying to get close to some of the female militia groupies, so she had to pretend she thought they hung the moon when she was with them.”

Olivia’s lips curved with amusement. “She’s so not groupie material.”

“So you know her.”

“I do.” She didn’t elaborate.

“Is she okay?”

Her smile faded. “She’s fine.”

“I didn’t get to find out what happened to her after she was taken.”

“Because you were grabbed by the BRI guys.”

God, he hated the skepticism in her voice, the hint of disbelief, as if he’d have disappeared for a year just for the hell of it. “You don’t believe me.”

“I never said that.”

He pushed to his feet. “You didn’t have to.”

She stood, as well, and caught his arm. “Don’t do this. I’m trying to understand what’s happened to you.”

“You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy. Is that what you think?”

“Of course not.” Her grip softened, her fingers sliding slowly down his arm to his wrist, where they settled against his scars. “I just need to know why you stayed away so long. Where have you been?”

“After I got away from the guys who took me, I headed east into North Carolina.” He gave a little tug of his arm and she let go of his wrist.

“Why east?” she asked.

“Because when I got out of that hovel where they were keeping me, that’s the way I was facing. So I ran and didn’t look back.” He looked down at his scarred wrists.

“Until now. Why did you come back now?”

He looked at her, saw the curiosity in those summer-sky eyes and blurted the truth. “Because you’re a target. And you needed to know.”

Chapter Four

“That’s why you’re here? You thought we didn’t know we were on the BRI’s hit list?” Olivia shook her head, not buying it. “I told you already. We know—”

“I don’t mean The Gates is the target,” Landry said in a quiet tone that made her chest ache. “I mean you, Olivia. The BRI is trying to get their hands on you.”